[Handheld] The mobile reader support and requests thread (77)

1 Name: Squeeks : 2007-10-20 20:56 ID:IxY8cNNA

On a brief initial trial, currently food and japanese boards have a "mobile" version, which is pretty much stripped down and designed for people with phones, PDA's and other handheld devices that can browse mobile XHTML content. Right now I've done what I can without more rigourous testing since I haven't the means to test this on my own phone.

So please post any problems or requests you have. Screenshots are very helpful even if you haven't got a problem, so I can see how it looks like over a variety of devices.

Things I already know about at this point:

  • You can't reply to threads, or make new ones. It's pretty much "read only".

  • Post numbers have embedded javascript, as well as the "delete" button, both of which don't work.

  • Text maybe somewhat too large, and there is no CSS/looks boring.


2 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-10-21 00:05 ID:/9HCJHh+

Are any other boards going to be mobile? If so Tech Support is a must, I only ever resort to such devices when my PC isn't working. I'll test this out later on my PSP and will do my best to provide a screen shot.

3 Name: Squeeks : 2007-10-21 00:13 ID:IxY8cNNA

Sure, eventually I'd like all the boards to have it supported.

4 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-10-21 05:31 ID:w73/0TpD

I'll try it on my PSP tonight, and see how it goes.

5 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-10-23 02:15 ID:w73/0TpD

Alright, it works good, but the PSP can already handle the site. Looks like win for mobile phones though.

6 Name: Squeeks : 2007-10-25 21:55 ID:IxY8cNNA

Giving this an age since all boards now have it, including this one.

7 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-10-31 22:52 ID:E4+WCQat

This is really cool, I tried using 4-ch with my phone before but the pages were too large for it to load. I'll give it a shot as soon as I recharge it!

8 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-11-05 11:12 ID:+D4iMrL7

Thanks squeeks, Ive always wanted to browse 4-ch when on the bus or train

9 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-11-06 19:42 ID:XCjeMJwF

Eh, it didn't work so well for me on my phone. Viewing 4ch with such a small screen is rather annoying.

10 Name: Squeeks : 2007-11-06 19:57 ID:QCPfYDaq

>>9
It's fine if you think it sucks, but you need to show me why. Maybe stop using a phone with a tiny screen?

11 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-11-07 11:03 ID:XSdysB5p

12 Name: Squeeks : 2007-11-07 22:37 ID:QCPfYDaq

>>11
As I've already asked, what phone, what browser etc?

13 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-11-08 09:37 ID:+D4iMrL7

>>12
a sony ericsson W810i, but that doesn't matter. if you use 4-ch:mobile on your computer you still can't see anything after:
"I thought it would pass, but it's been three weeks..."
http://4-ch.net/personal/mobile.pl/1193225109/1
http://4-ch.net/personal/kareha.pl/1193225109/1

14 Name: Squeeks : 2007-11-08 20:11 ID:QCPfYDaq

Ah right, I've now fixed that problem involving truncating posts. Thanks, anonymous.

15 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-11-15 21:19 ID:WQ3T6uBa

16 Name: Squeeks : 2007-11-15 23:27 ID:QCPfYDaq

Hrm, thread titles look too big on your phone, is that because your cursor is over it, >>15 ?

17 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-12-03 20:12 ID:BtHDPKZn

Very nice, GJ!

Looks pretty good on my E-series Nokia (WebKit based browser):
http://lnk.nu/img140.imageshack.us/gwt.jpg
http://lnk.nu/img132.imageshack.us/gwu.jpg
http://lnk.nu/img110.imageshack.us/gwv.jpg

Now, if only I could post..

18 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-12-21 12:27 ID:eUjpr7d1

my phone's browser is netfront and i noticed that the links for the boards point to http://4-ch.net/.../mobile instead of http://4-ch.net/.../mobile.pl. this causes me to get an error like this whenever i click one of the links:
Not Acceptable
An appropriate representation of the requested resource /req/mobile could not be found on this server.
Available variants:

Additionally, a 406 Not Acceptable error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

clicking the mobile.pl link takes me to the board, but it's sorta annoying to have that extra step.

also, netfront on my phone can handle the normal version of the site reasonably well, except that it doesn't support frames, some of the stylesheets don't work quite right, and it can't load the js file because when it requests the file from the server it gets a page that says "The Requested Page can not be displayed" instead of the script. i think this is probably because the browser doesn't put */* in the accept header, which is something that EVERY OTHER FUCKING BROWSER I'VE EVER SEEN THAT SENDS AN ACCEPT HEADER DOES.

anyway, here's the workaround for that that i use on my site, so things like this and this work just fine on my phone:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} !(text|\*)/(javascript|\*)
RewriteRule \.js$ - [T=text/plain]
</IfModule>

19 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-12-21 12:29 ID:Heaven

> RewriteCond %{HTTP_ACCEPT} !(text|\)/(javascript|\)

if you end up using this, you should note that your server sends js files as application/x-javascript (the default for apache) instead of text/javascript (which i configured mine to send them as) and change the regex accordingly.

20 Name: Squeeks : 2007-12-21 17:06 ID:QCPfYDaq

Wow, netfront really sucks.

Does putting a trailing slash on the end (eg. http://4-ch.net/dqn/mobile/ ) cause the same problem?
I'm rather curious as to what strange headers netfront is sending. Do you see anything unusual in http://services.4-ch.net/tools/headers.pl ? That stupid browser shouldn't be getting confused over a differing "Content-Location" header in a 200 response, right?

21 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-12-22 05:54 ID:Heaven

>>20
adding a trailing slash makes no difference.
the only things i see in the headers that look unusual at all are the fact that it's using a proxy and the insanely long accept header that doesn't include /, which most browsers do include if they send an accept header.
upon further investigation it appears that the proxy is responsible for the javascript problem... the 406 error is definitely coming from apache tho, and i'm pretty sure it's because the accept header doesn't include text/x-perl or /.

22 Name: Squeeks : 2007-12-22 09:19 ID:QCPfYDaq

Interesting about the trailing slash not making a difference. Because in terms of the headers Apache sends (and I don't have a proxy between me and server) differs quite significantly:

curl -i http://4-ch.net/dqn/mobile
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:58:02 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3
Content-Location: mobile.pl
Vary: negotiate,Accept-Encoding
TCN: choice
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=shift_jis

Now see above, I thought it was the Content-Location or in fact the TCN header that might have been stumping it, because, looking below...

curl -i http://4-ch.net/dqn/mobile/
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 08:58:41 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3
Vary: Accept-Encoding
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html; charset=shift_jis

All of those potential problems aren't present when we trail with slash. This makes little sense. Let's start looking at headers from static pages:

curl -i http://4-ch.net/mobile
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:11:11 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3
Content-Location: mobile.html
Vary: negotiate,Accept-Encoding
TCN: choice
Last-Modified: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:07:42 GMT
ETag: "1dc165-8c2-d9ea6f80;38f78f00"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 2242
Pragma: no-cache
Content-Type: text/html

So browser has no issue requesting this page, which is also being "manipulated" by MultiViews like the addresses above. What I can deduct from this is that firstly the client is to blame for all of it's own problems, and secondly, it's sending headers or something it shouldn't. Multiple choice requests shouldn't be occurring. Request http://services.4-ch.net/tools/headers and then do another request with the .pl, remove the IP/host bit and paste me the rest. I'd like to see exactly what's being sent.

23 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-12-23 03:38 ID:eUjpr7d1

>>22

$ curl -H "Accept: text/html" -i http://4-ch.net/dqn/mobile
HTTP/1.1 406 Not Acceptable
Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 03:20:57 GMT
Server: Apache/2.2.3
Alternates: {"mobile.pl" 1 {type text/x-perl}}, {"error.pl" 1 {type text/x-perl}}
Vary: negotiate,Accept-Encoding
TCN: list
Content-Length: 542
Content-Type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1

...

netfront's accept header is this:

Accept: application/vnd.wap.xhtml+xml, application/x-pmd, application/vnd.phonecom.mmc-xml, audio/midi, audio/vnd.qcelp, application/xhtml+xml; profile="http://www.wapforum.org/xhtml", application/x-pcs-mcd+xml, multipard/vnd.sprint-pre-cache, multipart/mixed; q=0.5, multipart/related, text/vnd.wap.wml, text/vnd.sun.j2me.app-descriptor, text/x-pcs-gcd, text/css, application/ecmascript, image/png, image/gif, image/jpeg; q=0.5, image/vnd.wap.wbmp; q=0.2, application/sdp, audio/qcelp, audio/mp3, audio/mp4, video/mp4, audio/3gpp2, video/3gpp2, audio/3gpp, video/3gpp, audio/amr, audio/aac, audio/aacplus, application/pmd, application/m3g, audio/mpeg, audio/mid, text/plain, video/x-ms-asf, video/x-ms-wmv, audio/x-ms-wma,text/html;q=0.062,image/gif;q=0.062,image/x-jng;q=0.062,video/x-mng;q=0.062,image/x-mng;q=0.062,image/bmp;q=0.062,image/x-bmp;q=0.062   

24 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-12-23 04:06 ID:Heaven

also, in >>20 where it says:
> doesn't include /,
and
> text/x-perl or /.
it should say */*, not /

25 Name: Squeeks : 2007-12-23 04:52 ID:QCPfYDaq

Please, do me a favour, complain to Sprint/Netfront/whoever and remind them that their implementation of a "browser" on that phone sucks. I've stuck the stupid file extensions so save you and any other netfront users the grief of having to click twice.

Also I was curious about the rest of the headers netfront sent, not just the accept mime types.

26 Name: Anonymous Advisor : 2007-12-23 06:05 ID:Heaven

>>25
here are the rest of the headers:
(IP and Host removed)

Date: Sun Dec 23 05:29:08 2007
Request: GET http://services.4-ch.net/tools/header.pl

(Accept removed)

Accept-Charset: UTF-8, us-ascii, iso-8859-1, UTF-16,*
Accept-Language: en;q=1.0,es;q=0.5
Cache-Control: no-cache
Clientid: (removed)@sprintpcs.com
Host: services.4-ch.net
Pragma: no-cache
User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (MobilePhone SCP8500/US/1.0) NetFront/3.4 MMP/2.0
Via: 1.1 kscymbmagprx03-int.nmcc.sprintspectrum.com:8090
X-Network-Type: IS2000
X-Wap-Profile: "http://device.sprintpcs.com/Sanyo/SCP8500/1002SP.rdf"

most of the time the X-Network-Type is EVDO, it's IS2000 when i'm at home because my house is right in the middle of a 100 square foot hole in sprint's coverage (insert conspiracy theory here).
adding a trailing slash, removing the .pl, etc only changes the Request one.

27 Name: Squeeks : 2007-12-24 02:24 ID:Heaven

Hey that client ID header is a really smart idea. I personally won't go out of my way to look for it, but someone else has to be.

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